Two Countries, One Border: Limbo

Click to read the article in Turkish

They have left their whole lives behind. They tried to fit their lives into the clothes they wore and the backpacks they had with them. They wanted to make sure that their children could go to school and they wanted a job for themselves. Just like us, just as we all live... Freedom, security and a healthy life... It was all they were searching for.

They came from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan. Just like 70 million displaced people from around the world...

We said that what they sought after was freedom, security and a job, but what they actually longed for was a hope. A hope for a better life... A single statement was enough for them to head for the border.

They came from cities, from villages. They are now on an immense green field, trying to - hopefully - create an opportunity for themselves to start from the very beginning.

Edirne is 260 kilometers away from İstanbul. Since the day this journey for hope to the border began, how many people have dreamt of a better life in the bus that they embarked on their way to uncertainty?

It takes three hours to get from İstanbul to Edirne. How many people have pounded this kilometers-long way, leaving their families and friends behind?

Edirne... It is full of people who have come to the border following the statement of a person, hoping for a better life. While some of them have been here for a week, some of them have just arrived. While some of them have come here with their families, some of them are on their own. There is a 70-year-old man who cannot speak a single word of Turkish, so is a newborn baby... Some of them have quitted their jobs and come here while some of them have been unemployed for years.

Everything is easy in a newsroom. A news report just pops up on your screen: "The boat with refugees on board has capsized in the Aegean."

You feel sad, but there is nothing to do for them. Nine casualties... You just report the news and move on with your life. Your sadness comes to an end the moment you are done with the news report. Yes, you feel sad, but you are not devastated. Life goes on as usual. As the saying goes: What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve over...

But, this time, I could not stand it. I look those people in the eye in Edirne, I bowed my head in shame at times.

The shore of Tundzha... Hundreds of people... Those who cannot cross into the other side are hurrying to find a tiny tree branch, a little piece of nylon, they are hurrying to set up a tent that will protect them from the cold.

Those who do not have a nylon are trying to find a blanket to cover themselves with. Those who cannot find either one are like our İbrahim Gaze... They are lucky if they can lay a rug on the ground.

It is almost evening now. Everyone is striving to light a fire, albeit a tiny one. They are holding axes and the branches of the green trees that they have just cut. They have to get warm because layers and layers of clothes that they wear will not suffice to keep them warm in a few hours...

Children sleeping under the wings of their mothers, unaware of anything going on around them... The mother wrapped her children in blankets, waiting for hope. A few loaves of bread, diapers for the children and only two handbags on the right... I am sure that they have fitted their whole lives into those bags. As I have said, I was sometimes unable to look out of shame. I could not ask "How are you?", it was like I had a lump in my throat. What else could this mother tell me, other than what I had just seen?

A dirt road... Only a few kilometers away from Pazarkule. People just standing in the middle of a two-way traffic flow...Three people covered in blankets in front of them... They are trying to get both warm and dry.

They jumped into Evros with hope, but they were forced to return, with their feet bare... All I could ask was what country they were from. I actually wanted to hear their voices so that I could make sure that they were OK.

One of them said "Somalia" in a shaking voice. What difference would their country of origin make?

A village named Doyran... One of the many villages on the border... People are walking in a single file, those who have lost hope are on their way back from the border... A couple of cars in the vicinity...

Doyran village is 25 kilometers away from the city center of Edirne. A mother and her daughter at the very back... Will they return to the city where they have just come from or will they head for somewhere else?

Maybe the answer to this question of mine was hidden in the answer given by another person that I talked to in the village. Kasim Sobhani... "God is great", he answered my question. While he was eating his fill with the hot soup and bread brought by a benevolent family from Edirne...

In life, I have seen that dreams can reach eternity, just as they can just come to an end. But, what could a four-year-old child dream of at the most? A bowl of soup and bread?

There is a child from Afghanistan crouching down just in front of me. He apparently dreamed of having his belly full. A whole bowl of soup in front of him and a loaf of bread, way bigger than he can hold with his little hands...

I think the world should have burned down at that very moment. But, it did not. And I have never felt so burnt up inside.

As I have said, everything is easy on the news desk. But nothing is apparently easy when you look them in the eye.

Sometimes they wanted to speak, they wanted to share their sorrows... But, sometimes... They did not want to utter a single word. Though they did not speak, their very presence was also telling a lot.

I knew cruelty in the world and raised my voice against it, but - for the first time in my life - I felt the need to cry that out loud. I questioned the reason for this atrocity over and over again on my way back.

But, isn't this world the homeland of us all? (HA/SD)